Thanks for the quilt, Grandma Emily!!

Emily sent us this awesome quilt for the babies. Elena already thinks it is a blast. She was mesmerized by the garage pockets for the cars and "drove" all over the place. Thank you so much!!

Even more camping pictures

For dinner we had steak on a stick (a Krentz family favorite), shrimp skewers, roasted vegetables, baked sweet potatoes and baked Bananas Foster for dessert. What a feast! And thanks to the PNW, no bugs to speak of (no biting bugs anyhow). Elena slept like a champ in the tent, though ended up IN my sleeping bag by the morning. Kevin and I did not fare so well... every year it gets harder and harder to get a good night's rest in a tent.
The next morning, Ellie chills out by the fire.
On the way home, we stopped to pick strawberries. They were huge and sweet. For thoes who might worried, I finally discovered ZOUT, the stain remover, after a year of my child eating solid foods and ruining many a shirt... So the above shirt looked a whole lot worse by the end of the trip, but was completely salvaged! Hooray for stain remover. That needs to be included in the basket of essential items for new parents.
Can you believe how big and beautiful my baby girl has become? She is such the little kid these days, it just floors me. I can't believe what a trooper she was on this whole camping trip. She just goes along for the ride. As long as her mommy and daddy (and tiger and bunny and jacket and shoes) are nearby, she is ready for anything.

More camping pictures

Check out the belly!
Sweet baby in the sand.
More baby in the sand.
Hot sun, long shadows.
The whole clan waits for the sun to go down. It was still 80 degees when it finally went down at about 9 pm.

Camping

This weekend we went camping with our friends, the Gaylords. They took most of these photos!! We discovered a beautiful spot along the Suiattle River, down a steep ravine. We were totally isolated and had everything anyone could ask for -- river, sand, mountains, good food, and good company. Too bad it hit 100 degrees that day and none of us could get up the energy for a hike. Instead, we hung out under our make-shift shelter and enjoyed the heat as much as we could.
Pregnancy and heat are not a good mix. Even Elena was mellowed out.
Keeping cool. Or rather, keeping very hot (instead of scorching.)
Hot baby.
We brought a new game where you throw balls tied to ropes onto plastic thingies...can't remember the name. Kevin had the brilliant idea to play it in the mountain stream, which was as cold as the air was hot. It really helped!

Wenesday night never was better

The chicken is smoked all day in the smoker with great care and anticipation...
Kevin carefully regulates the heat and adds the wood chips into the early evening... Meanwhile, Ursi puts the baby down at precisely 7:50 pm so that she can set up the TV table with all that might needed for the next 2 hours....
...all in preparation for prehaps the greatest Wednesday night television show ever: "So You Think You Can Dance!?" Yes, folks, we are obsessed with a reality television show. It is awesome! (And no, we do not get cable, so we our summer programming is severely limited.)

For Hoosier Kitty and Temporary Librarian

So I'm a terrible mother. It took me almost 17 months to take my child to the library. When we finally found our local branch and I got over my fear that my child would just start pulling books off the shelves, we discovered the Board Book Goldmine. In Seattle, (maybe everywhere??), board books do not need to be checked out, you can take as many as you want, and there are no due dates or fines. WOW! So we loaded up the stroller and skipped the check out line (thank you very much) and have been enjoying new stories about Vegetable ABCs, Lola and Charlie, Bunny Lullabies, Loud and Quiet things, Maisy Mouse, Roosters who travel the world, and more! Elena is thrilled. She had started rejecting all her old books at story time-- "no, no, no, no." I think she just got bored reading the same things over and over.
But now she settles in with each new book with a satisfied "yeah." Next week, we try toddler story time!

It's the thought that counts

Kevin had a concert last weekend on San Juan Island and picked this cute outfit up for Elena at a trendy consignment shop. Too bad it is 3-6 month size.

Slide! Water! (Die, why?)

And here she is, enjoying her slide! and water!

Or, if you are so inclined, she might be comtemplating why we die: Die! Die! Die! Why! A budding philosopher? University of Chicago, here she comes...

The deck

Our deck is not nearly as wonderful as the Pless People's new deck (www.gabeandandrea.blogspot.com) , but it is getting a lot of use this summer. The guy who mows our lawn gave us a bobby car, slide and a playhouse for free-- very cool.
Her favorite activity so far is sitting on the deck and pouring water back anf forth between cups, on the bobby car, down the slide, and on my feet. Notice the red jacket that is on her lap... Ellie has this affliation for jackets and shoes that borders on neurotic. She wants both on at all times... even on a beautiful sunny afternoon on the deck, or in her broiling car seat. Here I convinced her that she could hold her jacket, but not actually wear it. She is sometimes okay with this compromise and can be seen carrying her jacket around with her, hugging it like a security blanket.

I like to think that she is the ultimate baby-girl-scout and takes after her mother and Aunt Amy in their lifelong quest to be "always prepared." Admittedly, I carried around a tiny medicine/emergency/sewing kit with me from middle school through college and I am sure Amy still does to this day. You just never know when you might need a spare jacket or pair of shoes?

Kevin likes to believe that he has finally gotten the adventursome family member he has been praying for. I turned out to be a bit of a dissapointment... Sure, he knew I was a wimp when he married me, but he had no idea how sad it would be to have a wife who does not share his love of spontaneous action packed adventures (granted, he doesn't have the time or energy to do much adventuring these days, but if he DID have the time and energy, he would do it all the time.) So now he has this daughter who can't get enough of GO GO GO from the moment she wakes up. God does listen!

It also might reflect Elena's naturally cuddly and clingy nature... remember that this is the baby that wouldn't let go of me till about a month or two ago. So now she has her jackets and shoes and random toys that she decides to become attached to for the day. Yesterday she lugged around her magnetic drawing board (thanks Aunt Molly!!) all day, in the car seat, and almost to bed. It was especially hard to carry that and her new library books and her jacket and a random pair of shoes... Perhaps a bag is in her future? Or maybe I don't want to perptuate this habit?

Happy birthday, Dr. Bloomingtonaut!!

You have accomplished so much this year! Best wishes for the year to come! What a grand way celebrate your birthday and the completion of your dissertation on an adventure in the Alaskan wilderness (www.bloomingtonautica.blogspot.com). The Krentz family loves you very much!

Heaven and hell

So this summer, in a moment of weakness, I signed Elena up for classes at the Little Gym up the street. It is a weekly parent-child class for toddlers and with all the added family memberships and blah blah blah it ended up costing much more than I had anticipated. I regretted it immediately and Kevin and I both mourned the current culture of paying strangers to entertain our child for us and the loss of good clean fun. Why do we need to pay someone $200 to teach our kid how to jump up and down?

Anyhow, I decided to give the classes go and Monday Elena entered into her own toddler version of HEAVEN. This place let her do everything she loves most in the world: sing songs; sit on, under and around a huge parachute; play with huge containers of balls; blow bubbles; run, run, run; jump, jump, jump; and crawl all over tons of plasticy soft things. The absolute highlight was when "Teacher Allison" needed a child to demonstrate a flip on the toddler sized high bar. Ellie was first to reach her and she skillfully twirled my gross-motor-skills-deficient daughter up and around that bar like she was Mary Lou herself. Elena flipped out (literally and metaphorically) and insisted that Teacher Allison spot her a few more times. Then she attempted to climb over all the other children in line to do it "more! more! more!" I actually had to take her outside-- the entire gym-- because she was screaming so loud to do it more. She was in just ecstacy... then agony... just like that. Major meltdown. I have never seen her so desperate. She did end up holding it together for the last bit of class, until a large boy randomly and roughly pushed her down and she could not figure out how life could be so cruel to bring such joy and sorrow together in one place. Poor kid.

Despite the cost, I am so glad we found this place and I can't wait for her to get her Little Gym high again next week. There is nothing so beautiful as seeing your child in seventh heaven (even if it is followed by moments in hell.)

Today

I love this age!!! Elena is just a hoot. The moment she wakes up she is talking and showing off her little personality. She continues to be a freak about shoes and jackets and going to the park. She adores her stroller, the cat, grapes, and "daddy! daddy! daddy! daddy!" Today, my favorite new words were:

"Kay-koo"-- thank-you! She said this when she gave ME a bite of her toast in the morning, when I gave her her beloved "ka-keh" (jacket), when I poured warm water over her back in the bath and when I gave her some banana before bed. It was so beautiful to hear!! I always thank her when she give me things, (even stinky diapers), and it has finally paid off!

"Two!" She is saying "two" all the time now. It is so fascinating to see her grasp this concept! Today she woke up from her nap proclaiming with enormous enthusiasm that she had two tigers!!! Wow!! She LOVES that she has two toy cars outside: "two car! two! two! two!" and this evening, I wrapped her up in a tight burrito in the towel after her bath, and after I let her arms free one by one, she looked at them and said "Two!"

"pee-bo": This evening she had a little melt-down when I tried to push her sleeves up at dinner and refused to eat anymore. Finally, after she got all her frustration out, she said, "pee-bo! kay, kay, yeah, yeah, pee-bo! pee-bo!" It was clear as day that she wanted something, but I had no idea what it was. I racked my mind for all foods starting with P and finally figured it out: "Peanut-butter?" I asked. "Yeah! yeah! Kay! Pee-bo!" So she got some peanut butter toast and milk and was happy as a clam. (Until she spilled her milk, when she indeed, cried over it.)

Fertile ground

Last week, the baby was the length of an English cucumber... this week, he is the weight of a cauliflower (2 lbs.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DR. HAUSFRAU!

The Krentz Family loves you and hopes all your birthday wishes come true.

Congratulations, Rachel Auer, B.A.!!

Rachel graduates from University of Chicago today! Hooray! I wish I could be there!

Bubble bath!

Animal love, cont.

Another huge developmental milestone that happened this week (what is it about 16.5 months??) was that Elena is now feeling like she can go to sleep on her own pretty reliably. This started a couple weeks ago, but I have still usually needed to go in and help her soothe and relax a few times before she finally went to sleep. Today, I rocked her a bit before naptime, then put her in her crib with her best buddies (bunny, tiger, and kitty/tiger) and she easily let me go and just started chatting with them for about 5 mintues before all went quiet. I snuck in there and saw this sweet picture-- she is actually lying on top of bunny and hugging tiger and kitty/tiger.

New table

This week I got Ellie a new little table to sit at and do things. It isn't really any easier than her booster seat for me to feed her, but she really seems to like the freedom to sit herself down and the height is just right for her. She is really showing A LOT of independence in the last couple of weeks and I thought this would be a good way of helping her out.
It is right next to the stove, so I can be sure to drop hot things on her head. It also serves as a handy art table! I do not care if she draws on it be accident (it cost me $10 including 2 chairs).
We also tried some finger painting. It got messy. Luckily, Elena still thinks wiping things up is a fun game.

Early training

Kevin and I are training Elena to put away the dishes. She catches on quickly!

Leaps and bounds

Some days it seems like Elena just grows in leaps and bounds. Yesterday was a great day for both of us for some reason. Good naps, good mood, good food and lots and lots of new words! All in one day she said all these new combos and a couple new words:

1. Mommy chair
2. Mommy shampoo
3. Mommy sock
4. Daddy shoe
5. Daddy go (actually "Da-do"-- interesting that she combined them!)
6. Two (in reference to 2 giraffes, 2 bottles of lotion, 2 spoons, 2 stuffed animal tiger/cats)
7. Car go.
8. Bye-bye store.
9. No. no. no. no. no. no. no. (a big day for practicing the power of "no")
10. 'kay! (Okay!)
11. Be-boo ("bless you" after I sneezed)

And she also made some terrific drawings, with crayons and finger paint, thanks to a new little plastic table I got her off of Craig's List. I will post pictures soon.

7-10 days

Elena is on her third virus in three weeks! Hooray for daycare!! I'm always told that viruses last 7-10 days... well, that only holds when they are not the nasty OVERLAPPING viruses. Fever, cold, fever. And she isn't even over her cold yet. We are all exhausted from so many nights of tylenol and stuffy noses.

Melmo???

Tonight we were at the video store and I thought I'd check out the kids' section. Elena caught a glimpse of Elmo on the cover of a Sesame Street video and started shouting "Melmo! Melmo! Melmo!" I was flabbergasted-- who taught her "Elmo"??? I let her carry the video cover around with her and she refused to let go when it was time to go home. In fact, she threw a HUGE screaming fit because we took away her "Melmo"! Now, her Grandpa Tim did give her an Elmo toy at Christmas, but she didn't show much interest, so we put it away till she was a little older. But other than that, that is really the only time she has ever seen him. How in the world has she fallen in love with Elmo??? I thought my baby was immune from cultural icons!! So when we got home, we curiously took out the Elmo toy and she went crazy for it. She carried him around with the video (yes, we gave in to the tantrum) all evening. As we speak, she has fallen asleep hugging her Elmo and Tiger. Amazing.

Mommy shoe!

The other day, Elena was talking about her favorite thing-- the possiblity that we might GO. she was insisting on putting on her socks and shoes and jacket when I asked her what I needed to go out. Does Mommy need her shoes? "MOMMY SHOE!!" She announced and got me my shoe and started forcefully banging on my foot. Mommy shoe. Mommy shoe. Mommy shoe.

Two words!!! Wow!!

So far, that is the only reliable combination of words she has, but it is still pretty cool.

Bye-bye baby

Elena has really turned a corner developmentally in the last couple of weeks. She finally is secure walking and takes advantage of her new skill by exploring the house... on her own!!! Seriously, up to a couple weeks ago, she hardly ever left my side. She insisted on being near me ALL THE TIME, going to the bathroom, cooking, dressing, eating... Now I can be washing dishes and she just walks away! It is such a beautiful thing. I never thought the sight of my baby's backside would be so sweet.

Elena and Obie

CONGRATULATIONS DOCTOR BRANSCOME!!!

What do you get when you look up "nymphs" and click "images" on Google? Lots and lots of girl on girl porn. This picture was one of the rare few that did not involve lust on a beach. So after so many years of Elizabeth working diligently, through thick and thin, I finally find out what she was writing about. I thought she was a classisits honorably studying ancient stories and poetry, translating Greek texts, interpreting prose, analyzing historical trends...Ha! Nymphs! In any case, I am so very proud of her and know that whatever she wrote, it was BRILLIANT. I have no doubt that this was the best classically-erotic dissertation ever written.

Trip to Whidbey Island

We took a trip to Whidbey Island this weekend, to hang out at the Camp Casey faculty house (provided for SPU faculty one weekend a year) and see the beautiful island. Here we are on the ferry.
The highlight of the trip was seeing three Bald Eagles hanging out in a pasture. There were two mature adults, and one teenager. Very cool!
We also scoped out a couple Geocaches, including one at the end of the this trail. It reminded me of Ebee, so I took a picture of the sign. It is in a rain shadow, so it almost always sunny there!
The trail looked beautiful-- see the ocean beyond-- but Kevin and I were too tired to actually hike it. Elena has been sick and up with fevers every hour or so all night for most of the week and we are WIPED OUT. Yes, I know, I know... get used to it, right? Sigh.

Happy birthday, Kevin!

Here is Kevin with his birthday throne, and very sad daughter. Elena was having a bad morning. Kevin got an array of new beers, including "Arrogant Bastard Ale," some succulants for the garden, and best of all...
A PLAYSTATION 2!!!! Will I ever see my husband again? Not for at least 48 hours of non-stop Grand Turismo. Then the high will wear off, reality will set in, and it will be back to the grindstone. Enjoy it while you can, my dear husband...

Still growing

This week, BabyJ is the length of a husk of corn. I assume this is true when he is all stretched out!